Ruben Melikyan Announces Formation of 'No' Campaign Headquarters

Human rights defender Ruben Melikyan has released a statement on his Facebook page, announcing that consultations will begin within the legal community to establish a 'No' campaign through a citizen initiative in accordance with the legal framework.

"Over a hundred legal professionals and human rights defenders publicly expressed our position days ago that the referendum initiated by the political authority is unconstitutional in both substantive and procedural aspects. Unfortunately, the referendum has been scheduled nonetheless, and it is becoming a 'de facto' reality. Recent events have shown that opposition parliamentary and extraparliamentary forces have not expressed a desire to form a 'No' campaign.

Thus, beyond the already seriously contested constitutionality and legality, there is an objective issue regarding the fairness of the scheduled referendum. In this context, based on the imperative to defend the values of democracy and the rule of law, we are beginning consultations within the legal community to establish a 'No' campaign through a citizen initiative in accordance with the legal framework.

The aims of the initiative are:

1. To provide citizens of the Republic of Armenia the opportunity to access substantiated arguments for both 'Yes' and other options excluding 'Yes' on an equal basis.
2. To ensure that citizens of the Republic of Armenia and the international community can trust that the results of the voting are verifiable and subject to appeal.

Thus, our goal is to undertake the 'public defense' of the 'No' opinion in favor of the Republic of Armenia and our citizens. We invite all legal professionals who share the presented ideas to join the initiative group by leaving a comment under this post or by sending a message or calling 060601948, 060640640.